Affiliate Marketingthe Smart Way

Second edition

A Super Quick Guide to Help You MasterAffiliate Marketing and Increase Your Revenue

By Pat Flynn

Creator of SmartPassiveIncome.com

© 2016 Flynndustries, LLC

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

thank You

Thanks for downloading this quick reference guide to help you effectively integrate

master affiliate marketing into your business. For more details about affiliate marketing,

please listen to Smart Passive Income Podcast Session #186.

And for more helpful information to help you build your online business and generate

an income online, please visit SmartPassiveIncome.com.

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What is Affiliate Marketing?

Generating an income by sharing, recommending,

and promoting another company’s or person’s

product or service.

In other words, when you help another company generate

sales, you get a cut!

In this quick-hit reference guide, I’ll share ten tips to help you

master affiliate marketing, but before that . . .

Affiliate Marketing is Awesome!

Here’s why:

You don’t have to create your own product, because someone

else already did! All you have to do is send traffic through a

link to that product, and everything after that is out of your

hands.

Wait what? That’s it?

Well, sort of, which is why affiliate marketing has had such a

BAD RAP lately. But, I’m trying to change that!

You see, affiliate marketing has become a huge part of my

overall passive income portfolio, and I’ve picked up a few

things over the years that have taught me what works,

and what doesn’t. The number one reason people think so

negatively about it is because influencers are abusing its

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power, recommending products and services primarily for

the commissions, and not because they are truly helpful.

Every time I’ve put money first before serving my audience,

I’ve failed.

The attention and trust you’ve built with your audience to

have them even consider your recommendations is the most

important asset you have. Don’t disrespect your audience by

promoting something that won’t help them.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

On the following pages, I’ll be sharing my Top 10 tips for affiliate marketing that I’ve picked up over the past few years. Some will be quick and obvious, while others not so much. But in order to hit a home run with your audience (and your commissions) when you recommend other products, these tips are vital. It’s quick and dirty for you, so you can get to work implementing these tips sooner rather than later. Good luck! Tip number one starts for you on the next page, and it’s probably the most important of all . . .

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Affiliate Marketing Rules and Strategies

1. Be extremely confident in your

recommendation.

If possible, use products that you’re going to recommend first

before you promote them and in a best case scenario, you’d

be promoting what you already use and trust anyway.

2. Be honest and open with your audience that

you’re sharing an affiliate link.

Let them know you will earn a commission if they use it. For

those in the US, this is required legally, but doing this no matter

what helps your audience understand that you’re honest, and

a number of people will seek out your affiliate links to pay you

back for the value you’ve already provided to them.

3. treat the product you’re promoting as if it

was your own.

Unbox that product, show the insides of it (using images

or screen capture software). People like to see what they’re

going to buy before they buy it.

Offer to answer any questions and be there to help if they

need it.

If you’re confident in your recommendation and know it will

help your audience, it’s your duty to sell it! A single link on

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a single blog post isn’t enough. You wouldn’t promote your

own product that way, would you?

4. Find your “Bluehost.”

My number one earning affiliate product is for a hosting

company called Bluehost. It’s one that I’ve used, still use, and

am confident in my recommendation for those just starting a

website or online business.

I help people build online businesses, so it makes sense

that this is my top earning product; people need a website

in order to build an online business. This is the first step in

their journey, and the obvious first product to promote to

new visitors.

What’s YOUR Bluehost? In other words, what’s the first

step or product your audience needs to get involved with in

order to move forward? When you determine what that is,

the promotion of that product and the messaging behind it

becomes much more clear.

Affiliate Marketing Rules and Strategies

5. create a resource page.

My resource page is the most profitable page on my blog,

and all of the sales on that page, which are primarily through

affiliate products, are completely passive.

The resource page is a win for everyone because your

audience lands on a helpful page where you have curated all

of the top and most helpful tools, services, books, etc. that

you’ve mentioned on your website. You’re providing value

and generating an income at the same time, which is the

name of the game.

Hot tip:

It’s not terrible to promote more than one solution

for a particular problem or pain your audience has,

but when it comes to their first step, choosing one

solution and one solution only is the best thing you

can do. Why? Because people who are just starting

out get confused when there are a lot of options. Be

confident in your top recommendation, even though

there may be more than one solution, and it’ll pay off

for you and get your audience started on their journey.

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6. three helpful affiliate marketing tools

• Pretty Link: This WordPress plugin allows you

to turn those long, cookie-filled affiliate links

into a nicer looking, easy to remember and

share “pretty link.” This tool also helps you

keep track of the number of clicks for each link

you create, and it allows you to update those

links that people redirect to, without having to

go in and change every single instance of that

link on your website.

• ScreenFlow (for Mac) or Camtasia Studios

(for PC): These tools allow you to capture

screen recordings that you can use to show

Affiliate Marketing Rules and Strategies

various products or tools that you recommend

with your audience. These are the perfect

complement to an “unboxing” strategy where

you show your audience what they’re going to

get before they buy it.

• Geni.us Links: If you do any affiliate marketing

through the Amazon Associates program, you

can use this tool to make sure you are capturing

affiliate commissions from people outside of

your home country when they click on your

Amazon affiliate links.

7. cross-pollinate your affiliate links.

In other words, don’t be afraid to mention or share your

recommendations more than once, and in different ways. For

example, you may create a blog post showing the insides of

a particular product (where you’d include your affiliate link),

and you could also create a “Top 5 Tools You Use” post, which

includes the same product in it as well. Then, down the road,

you could perhaps create an article that is a list of all of your

Top List posts, which would subsequently get people back

into those articles where your affiliate recommendations are

placed. Cross-promote between various mediums as well,

such as podcasts and videos!

Hot tip:Make sure you keep all of the products you curate on your resource page up to date. Share at the top of the page that you do that, and people will be more confident in what you’ve shared with them. Lastly, keep track of how many clicks each of those links on the resource pages get, so that you can remove ones that don’t seem to be getting traction and are just wasting space, if there are any. In the next tip, I’ll give you a tool that you can use to help you do that.

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8. offer bonuses alongside your

recommendations.

A great way to stand out and make sure people use your

affiliate link (as opposed to someone else’s, because there

are other affiliates and influencers promoting that same

product on their platforms) is to offer unique bonuses for that

particular product. It works best if the bonuses relate to those

particular products, although they don’t have to.

Affiliate Marketing Rules and Strategies

9. Build relationships with the product owners.

Before or after you become an affiliate for a product, reach

out to that product owner and start a conversation with them.

Over time, that relationship can become mutually beneficial.

For example, you could feature that person in an interview

or podcast on your blog (like I did here with Nathan Barry,

the CEO and Founder of ConvertKit, and also here with Clay

Collins, the Co-Founder of Leadpages), which will help your

audience learn more about the product, and get to know who

will be taking care of them when they make a purchase. Plus,

no one knows that product better than the founder, so they

will likely be able to share the features, benefits, and results

in a way that will optimize conversions.

Plus, you can work closely with that person to make the

experience better for your audience too, from custom landing

pages after clicking through to special discounts or offers.

Lastly, if you end up performing very well as an affiliate for a

particular product, that will give you the ability to sometimes

ask for an increased commission. I’ve done this with a number

of companies and have sometimes been able to increase my

affiliate commissions by 300 percent!

note:Please check with the company/person first before using this strategy. Some companies do not allow offering bonuses when promoting their products.

types of Bonuses You could offer:

• Quick start guides

• Checklists

• Videos showing people how to use it (especially

any tricky or difficult parts)

• Additional parts/add-ons

• Other use cases and variants of the use of that

product

10Affiliate Marketing Rules and Strategies

10. think openly about what kinds of products

or programs you could become an affiliate for.

There are all kinds of products you can promote as an affiliate.

Here’s a list of ideas to help get you started:

• Online Courses

• Books (Both self-hosted or on a platform like

Amazon.com, and also ebooks and physical

books)

• Physical Retail Products (Amazon is the

obvious choice, but it’s not the only one! Target

and Wal-Mart have an affiliate program too!)

• Software Products

• Mobile Applications (iTunes Affiliate Program)

• Music (iTunes Affiliate Program)

• Services

• Coaching

The sky’s the limit with affiliate marketing, but only if you

remember that you are recommending products that are

helping people in some way. And as you begin to grow your

online business, attract attention, and earn trust, simply sharing

the things you use yourself and how they’ve helped you can be

a great, non-aggressive way to make it a win for everyone.

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Here’s to you and your affiliate marketing journey.

I appreciate you!

And if you enjoyed this quick reference guide, please let me

know by filling out this form, and by sharing it with the

link AffiliateMarketingtheSmartWay.com or by using the

button below.

Thanks!

Pat Flynn

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